HighRollers: Lightfall/Episode 45
"Knick Knack!" is the forty-fifth episode of the Lightfall campaign for High Rollers D&D. It was broadcast live on the Yogscast Twitch channel on April 30, 2017. With Matthew Toffolo absent for this episode, Tom Hazell joins as a special guest. In this episode, our heroes and their new ally explore the Velderbann mines to eliminate the Broken Sky and rescue the captured. Campaign Summary Enemy Sighted After gaining a new companion Knick-Knack from the kobold tribe, the group which includes the adventurers (Cam, Elora and Jiǔtóu), Cassandra and Reynard, have headed into the mines in search for the captured dwarven citizens of Velderbann and to shut down the Broken Sky operations within the town. As the group traverse through the caverns, sounds of low rumbling echoes throughout the mines. The air is dry and acrid, and obnoxious fumes vent out everyone now and then. Reaching an end, two smaller tunnels can be seen near the floor, both naturally formed and act as a vent for air to circulate within the caves. As they look through, it goes into a larger cavernous area. Five dwarves are seen picking on the iron ores with their pickaxes. Each of them have a thick metallic collar attached to their neck. Behind them are two human Broken Sky agents who are abusing the dwarves to work faster and harder. One of the dwarves later pushes a wheelbarrow filled with ores and gems away. Knick-Knack, who was exiled from his tribe for failing a series of trials, wants to rush in and kill everyone and find the red-stone sceptre as he wants to regain the trust of his people. However, the others stop him for fears of being outnumbered. In fact, the rest plans to free the dwarves and hope to have them on their side, an idea that Knick-Knack is not keen on since dwarves are treated as hostiles to his tribe. In the end, Knick-Knack agrees to the idea as it can be useful to defeat the Broken Sky agents, who are treated as enemies to the tribe. The First Battle As the group discuss their plan of attack, from the bridge at the left side of the large cave, a dwarf returns with an empty wheelbarrow. Behind him is another agent. Nonetheless, the group's plan does not change much, so they start executing it. Cam and Knick-Knack first enter the two small tunnels separately. Being small sized, Knick-Knack can easy walk inside it. Cam, though, had to crawl. Being a tight squeeze, one of his dagger scrapes along the tunnel wall. All three agents are alerted to the sound, with one of them drawing out a sword and walks towards the sound, thinking that it might be a kobold. At the same time, Elora quietly tells Knick-Knack to duck so she can attack if necessary. From Cam's perspective, he is ready to stab the agent's face should he ducks to check. Instead, an arm reaches in and touches Cam's nose. The agent is startled upon touching it, so he steps back and alerts the other agents to get ready to attack. First Round of Combat Cam immediately recoils back a bit and casts Spiritual Weapon to blindly attack anyone. A clash is heard. He then scrabbles out of the tunnel and clumsily stands up just in time to see the agent in front of him drawing out his second sword. Knick-Knack also charges out of the tunnel and pierces his spear into one of the agent's groin. Cassandra and Jiǔtóu crawl separately into the tunnels next. Being nimble, Jiǔtóu comes out to the other side first and strikes multiple times at the agent Cam attacked to marginal success. Reynard then activates his magical scimitar to attack one of the agents, though he almost forgot the magic word that Alfred told him earlier. One of the agents requests to call a "mist" in. Another takes out a stone and shouts "attack" on it. On command, the five dwarves stop mining and charges at the group, though doing so with exhaustion, attacking Cam and Jiǔtóu first. The agents also attack the two and Knick-Knack to moderate success. From the tunnel, Elora fires an arrow from her Moonbow to the agent furthest from her. A mist then floats into the room from a tunnel at the front. It shapes into a human and, after a brief confusion, orders the other agents to attack the group. Second Round of Combat Cam and Knick-Knack continue to attack the agents nearest to them. Cassandra tells Cam to not block the tunnel as she is crawling out of it. Jiǔtóu casts Darkness upon the furthest agent, causing a darken sphere to engulf not only the agent but three others near him, including Knick-Knack. Upon seeing this, one of the agents shouts to his comrades to find and eliminate the spellcaster. Jiǔtóu then gets ready to dodge any attack by using Patient Defence. Reynard's scimitar continues to fly unaffected by the Darkness, though it fails to injure the agent also within the sphere. He then crawls into the same tunnel Elora is in and pushes her out. Because of this, she just manages to dodge an attack from a dwarf. Both of them are now inside the large cavern. The agents and dwarves continue to attack the group. Though they largely miss, one of the dwarves dealt a critical blow to Cam's rib cage. The "mist" agent then vanishes. At this point, Jiǔtóu is close enough to spot a glowing red rune on the collar on one of the dwarves. She then requests someone to heal her. Elora hears this and, after missing a shot on an agent from her Moonbow, casts Healing Word on her. Third Round of Combat Cam disengages from the battle and leapfrogs over a dwarf to get out of the way of the tunnel. He then moves his Spiritual Weapon to attack one of the agents but misses as he ducks the attack. Knick-Knack too fails to hit anyone. Cassandra then casts Divine Prayer on Jiǔtóu's guandao to enhance it. Jiǔtóu also vaults over the dwarf by using her guandao as a support. As she lands, she then uses her guandao and attacks the agent in front of her. Her first swing misses but the next attempt slices the agent in half. Reynard's scimitar stabs an agent in the back. He then grabs a dwarf into the tunnel he is in to observe the collar closer. Understanding the Giant language, a word on the rune on the collar reads "blod", which translates to blood. However, he is not sure what it means. An agent walks out of the Darkness, allowing Knick-Knack the opportunity to attack him. However, he misses. Seeing his dead comrade, the agent then kneels beside it, before vowing to get revenge. He and another agent then attack Cam and Jiǔtóu separately, all are largely successful. The dwarves also tries to attack but they all miss. Elora shape-shifts into a giant scorpion before entering the Darkness. With Blindsight, she tries to attack an agent from behind but it was not successful. Observing closely, Cam, Jiǔtóu and the giant scorpion can see that the bridge spans across a deep ravine. It is so deep that they could not see the bottom of it. Also, a scaffolding is seen by the side of the bridge. The mist re-emerges into a human and stabs Jiǔtóu with a dagger. Fourth Round of Combat With his dagger Nimbus, Cam throws it at the agent that emerges out of the Darkness. It slices through the agent's arm, causing him to let go of the stone. It tumbles onto the ground and off the ledge. Just as this happens, Cam quickly dives and grabs the stone. Knick-Knack tries to leap onto the same agent but fails. Meanwhile, Cassandra now gets out of the tunnel to heal Jiǔtóu. Afterwards, Jiǔtóu attacks the man that was a mist and kills him. Reynard shouts to his companions of the word "blod" on the collar. He then have hit scimitar to attack an agent but misses. Now reaching its limit, the scimitar flies back to Reynard and deactivates itself. Reynard then takes out his crossbow and attempts a curved shot at the agent, which is a success. He tries it again but misses this time. Seeing that Cam now has the stone, one of the agent jumps on him and the two begins to wrestle. The other agent attacks Jiǔtóu, injuring her a bit. The dwarves then attack Cassandra, Knick-Knack and Reynard, though only a few manages to injure anyone. The giant scorpion sees the agent wrestling with Cam, so she goes over and knocks him off with her pincer, causing him to tumble down the ravine. She then turns around and gives a menacing look at the last surviving agent. Also the sphere of Darkness is gone by now. Fifth Round of Combat Cam, still lying on the ground, looks at the stone. Not knowing how to use it, he says "blod" on it. On command, the dwarves stop whatever they were doing and look around confusingly. Cam continues to try other random words, yet the dwarves remain still. Not knowing how it works, Cam instead commands his Spiritual Weapon to attack the last agent. Meanwhile, Knick-Knack attacks the dwarf that attacked him moments ago. Cassandra sees this and orders him to stop. Jiǔtóu lays some swings and punches onto the last agent. Reynard, after telling the dwarf by him to duck, then finishes him off with two shots from his crossbow. The second shot pierces through the agent's throat, which kills him. End of Combat Strategising Now that the battle is over, the group tell the dwarves to sit and rest through the stone, which Reynard knows that it is a black Rune of Kong (translates to "King" in Giant). They then give the dwarves some food and water, which they gladly accept. They later learn from the dwarves that there are two or three similar black stones of the same property. In the meantime, Cassandra picks Knick-Knack up to stop him from attacking the dwarf and later reluctantly heals the dwarf via Cure Wounds. With the cavern secured, the dwarves explain what had happened to their people. One of the male dwarf, Gromb, shares with the group that the humans, referring to the Broken Sky, occupied the town of Velderbann weeks ago and captured them. The strong and able-bodied dwarves are sent to the mines, while the rest are treated as slaves within the town. At first, the humans were kind enough to allow the dwarves to rest and recharge. However, these privileges were recently taken away, which ties in to sometime after the group first infiltrated Velderbann. By this time, Elora finds another two similar stones after searching through the dead human bodies. The two stones have the word "Kong" inscribed on it but its colour are a simple grey, unlike the black stone Reynard is holding to command the dwarves. These stones cannot give out command too. Jiǔtóu grabs a vial off one of the bodies, while Cam dons a set of armour one of the humans were wearing. After which, both Cam and Reynard push these bodies off the ravine, a decision that not everyone agree on. The dwarves how the others are faring in town. Jiǔtóu informs them that they manage to free Rolo and the small group of dwarves with him. She then asks about Ethan's whereabouts, to which the dwarves let her know that he might be taken away by the female fire giant. Regarding Gregor, the other fire giant, he maintains several forges within the mines. This explains the rumblings, the hot and acrid air and the fumes that the group felt earlier. The group are also told of another prominent Broken Sky member, Vesuvias Blackmantle, who is a magician. In particular, he is interested of the female half-orc soldier, a member of the captured Talis'Val 5th Regiment. Vesuvias is located somewhere within the barracks opposite of the ravine. The barracks also have an impromptu jail that houses more dwarves. As the group take this opportunity to rest with the dwarves, they discuss on their strategy to further clear the Broken Sky out of the mines. The general idea is to lure the Broken Sky members into the cavern they are in, then attack them. To do this, Cam volunteers to be the bait since he can disguise himself to look like one of them. Knowing that the cavern next door is another group of Broken Sky agents enslaving the dwarves thanks to Reynard's stealthy survey, the group decide to execute their plan but not before moving the saved dwarves into the previous cavern behind the two small tunnels. The Second Battle The cavern with more humans and dwarves is connected to the cavern the group are in via a dark corridor with a smaller cavern in the middle. Knick-Knack has set up a pendulum trap at the corridor's entrance with a longsword, some rope and a grappling hook. He then sets himself up on the wall to get ready to release the pendulum on command given by Reynard. Telling Knick-Knack the command word, "axuul", this also activates his magical scimitar. Knowing this will happen, Reynard grabs hold of it, ready to realise it later once the combat starts. Cassandra, Elora and Jiǔtóu also hide within the small cavern. Cam, in disguise, walks into the other cavern. The sconces on the walls shine a dim light across the cavern. Patches of dried blood scatter all over the floor. Other than the four dwarves seen mining under command of two humans, Cam also spot another two humans standing by the bridge over to his left. One of these two calls out to Cam, asking him what he is doing here. Cam walks up to the man and explains that the dwarves are not obeying his command and claims that his black rune is not working. He then gives his stone to the agent for inspection but the agent finds nothing. The agent then tells Cam to look for Vesuvias for a replacement but Cam voices out to say that he does not want to disturb him. The agent agrees, so he then gives his stone to Cam. Fearing that it may also be faulty, the agent says "mine faster" on the stone, resulting in the dwarves to mine faster on command. Cam pretends to realise his mistake by stating that he thought he needs to say "blod" first. Nonetheless, Cam will take the agent's stone to test it out first and will then return to give it back. As such, Cam walks back into the corridor, successfully obtaining a second stone. He then returns the first stone back to Reynard. Cam tries to command the dwarves to enter the room the group are in. However, the dwarves did not respond. Now knowing that he has to be within range, Cam decides to walk back into the cavern. Once walking back into the cavern looking frustrated, he claims that the agent's stone also does not work. In order to prove this, however, Cam says "run into the corridor". On command, the four dwarves run pass Cam and enter the corridor. Cam then plays guilty as one of them marches up to Cam in attempt to take back the stone. At this moment, Cam takes the opportunity to plunge his dagger into the man's face, resulting in the rest calling him a traitor. First Round of Combat Cam attempts to hold the agent he attacked hostage but fails as the agent slips away. With that failed, Cam then runs back into the corridor. The same agent and the other beside him then chase after Cam, not aware of the trap they are getting in to. Upon reaching the trap, Reynard shouts out his command, "axuul", and releases his scimitar. Knick-Knack also releases his pendulum trap but it did not do much damage. Then, Elora casts Moonbeam at the corridor's entrance, trapping the two agents inside. However, as Knick-Knack is unaware of the Moonbeam's effect, he jumps into the agents in an attempt to attack them. All these time, they are unaware of what had happened to the other two agents. With the two agents now trapped, Jiǔtóu and Reynard pound them with attacks. Second Round of Combat Cam disengages and command the dwarves that he releases them. The dwarves did stop moving but is confused by the command. The two agents trapped inside the Moonbeam get blasted by it, though they manage to deal some hits on Cassandra and Jiǔtóu. Elora warns Knick-Knack to get out of the Moonbeam as she heals Cassandra but Knick-Knack thinks that he is bathing in the glory of the Egg. Still, he later steps out of it after a blast of bright light hits him. Cassandra takes a couple of swings from her sword at the two trapped agents, though she misses one of them. Just then, two more agents shape into existence from mists and are now appear next to Jiǔtóu and Reynard. Fortunately, they did not manage to deal significant damage on the two. In retaliation, Jiǔtóu and Reynard attack back, effectively killing one of them. Being up close, Jiǔtóu sees a purple scar on their necks, believing it to be a Broken Sky tattoo. Third Round of Combat The two trapped agents are disintegrated by the Moonbeam as Cam throws his dagger Nimbus at the last agent. Elora draws out her Moonbow to attack the other, causing him to say, "Fellania, I've failed you." Knick-Knack tries to attack the agent with his spear but misses. Cassandra comforts him, then smacks the blunt edge of the sword at the agent's head, causing him to be knocked unconscious. End of Combat More Intel The group rummages the unconscious agent but finds nothing important. Jiǔtóu then takes the opportunity to ask about the content of the vial, to which she explains that it contains venom that can be applied to a weapon, enough to last a few strikes. Cam then allows the dwarves to rest in the previous cavern with their fellow dwarves as Jiǔtóu hands them some food and water. The dwarves thank the group in gratitude. Before leaving, the dwarves ask the group of the state of Velderbann, which the group reply that it is not in good shape, though a few have been saved. Asking about the Broken Sky in return, one of the dwarves share that Vesuvias is mad with power, capturing an old dwarven watchtower up in the mountains, as well as the 5th Regiment some time back. The dwarves also share about the female fire giant, Tanya, being smarter than Gregor, explaining that she is looking for a "lost secret" in the mountains to "unlock a door". As the dwarves never seen Fellania before, the adventurers explain that she is a cloud giant. This shock the dwarves, as they share that cloud giants are usually their allies. This let them believe that Fellania may be a crazy cloud giant. About the mines of Velderbann, the dwarves inform the group that it recently opened months ago, with the intention of selling the mined resources to Talis'Val. It consists mainly of iron ores, though Vesuvias is more interested of the gemstones and keeps them. Like what the previous group of rescued dwarves said, the last 24 hours had the Broken Sky pushing the dwarves hard to mine faster, not allowing any food or rest. Regarding the female half-orc soldier, the dwarves tells them that Vesuvias is planning to don a collar on her. After gathering enough information, the group direct the dwarves to the cave where the rest of them are seeking refuge. Featured Characters The Adventurers * Cam Buckland * Elora Galanodel * Jiutou Zhiji Jing New Appeared * Grumb[spelling?], a male hill dwarf * Unnamed female hill dwarf * Unnamed female half-orc, a Talis'Val soldier of the 5th Regiment Mentioned * Vesuvias Blackmantle, a Broken Sky magician Returning Appeared * Cassandra Wyndale * Reynard Ferehorn * Yik-Nik Tribe ** Knick-Knack * Broken Sky agents * Hill dwarves Mentioned * Alfred Gluvis * Bahamut * Broken Sky ** Fellania ** Gregor ** Tanya * Ethan * Talis'Val 5th Regiment Notable Moments Trivia References Category:High Rollers D&D